I'm not sure how many people are lucky enough to have The San Francisco Giants 3 World Series trophies put on display at their work for the company's employees to enjoy during their lunch break, but that's what happened the other day at Deluxe. So great.

I've been going through some old footage I, John Trippe, filmed in the late 90s/early 2000s here in San Francisco and will be releasing it a bunch of it in the coming weeks.

Footage features all kinds of people from Cairo Foster, Kenny Reed, Ocean Howell, Rob Welsh, and a slew of other pros you will probably recognize from old skate videos like 411, Thrasher and others including a load of footage that didn't make it anywhere... Below is a little taste of what's to come.

d0ntb33vil --- A new media art installation by local artist, Harris David Harris exploits a loophole in wireless networks at Google and Facebook bus stops in San Francisco.

Over the past two weeks, bus riders' devices automatically connected to Harris's routers while waiting for the bus. Instead of granting internet access, riders see a animated image of the sidewalk before them.

Googlers are seeing through their phones while waiting for the Google Bus thanks to media artist Harris David Harris

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Next time you're in SF, or for those who are here now, stop in, buy a zine and say hi. 3253 16th Street

We all know that San Francisco is going through aches and (growing?)/ shrinking artist pains these days as San Francisco property values sky rocket due to the tech infestation going on around the entire Bay Area. Maybe you work in tech and love it, but since this is an art website, we're interested to how this is affecting artists trying to make ends meet.

Some galleries have been forced to close due to 300% rent hikes. Many artists have fled to Oakland, LA and NYC in search of affordable housing and a more vibrant art scene... But we wanna know what you think of how it's going here in San Francisco. How are you making it work? What's your take on the art scene or lack there of? Do you think things are on the up and up or down and out here in San Francisco? Are artists a bunch of complainers and every thing looks great or is it curtains for San Francisco's artistic community? Thoughts

The Rena Bransten Gallery is packing up their 77 Geary space to make way for tech company MuleSoft

SAN FRANCISCO --- the city is beginning a new system for collecting multiple examples of taggers and graffiti artists' work and showing them to a judge in hopes of collecting large sums of restitution money following the lead of cities like San Diego.

"The beauty of the system is we don't get the guy with one tag for $250," said Victor Barr, San Diego County deputy district attorney when I talked to him last fall. "We are able to build these cases up to $5,000 and up. When you can show 50 tags or 100 tags, suddenly the judge and the public defender take it a lot more seriously." ~continue reading

Property owner Laurance Mathews walks past graffiti defacing his building on Erie Alley and South Van Ness Avenue. "It cost me $15,000 to clean up my building last year", he said.

SAN FRANCISCO --- We're really NOT trying to be negative here with posting so many stories of the city's art demise/ rapid changes, but man, the bad news keeps coming and coming. This time around another Mission gallery/ not-for-profit takes the hit as their landlord triples the rent... Let's hope they can find another space in the city sometime soon.

San Francisco based Brian Barneclo was commissioned in 2006 to paint a HUGE mural on the side of "Foods Co" on Shotwell at 14th Streets (PHOTOS). Through the years it got pretty taxed by misc graffiti and pigeon shit.

Barneclo and assistant David Benzler were asked to clean it up and under a week's time they completed this great 225 foot food chain themed mural.

The original involved MASSIVE mural (note the cars) completed in 2006 by Brian Barneclo.

Brian Barneclo's 225' long mural on Shotwell and 14th in San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO --- This morning's KQED Forum focused a portion of its show on the subject of artists in the city:

Soaring rents have hit art galleries in downtown San Francisco hard. Last month, several long-established Geary Street galleries were evicted to make way for a software firm. Meanwhile, individual artists are also struggling. As part of our Priced Out series on the high cost of living in the Bay Area, we look at how the local art world is coping.

As of this AM, it's not online yet, but soon you should be able to listen HERE.

The Rena Bransten Gallery is packing up their 77 Geary space to make way for tech company MuleSoft

Art is always a struggle, but this is getting ridiculous. Sure there are a lot of art schools here, but graduating students leave the city faster than you can say student loan. This drying up of young talented artists is dampening SF's dynamic art scene.

But hey, it's a city, and we know that cities are always in a state of flux... Guess the problem many are facing is, this is happening so fast and so violent. We can hear the "fabric" of the city tearing, and for the sake of San Francisco and it's future, better hope the tech industry isn't as speculative as the first DOT COM and any conceivable economic downslide not as painful... but no worries, the artists will come back and help rebuild any potential mess like they always do.

Maybe none of your friends have been forced out of their apartments, maybe your favorite bookstore is still standing (for now), maybe you can afford $13 drinks. But there will come a time when you reach your own priced-out moment, something that pushes you from "there's nothing we can do" to "we must do something!" For me, it's this:

Esta Noche to be replaced by a "New York style lounge featuring the best local House music DJ's in a... sexy den of wood, leather, red velvet, and glowing candles." Not to mention a "very competitive bottle service program." --continue reading

SAN FRANCISCO --- As a gallery owner, it's getting a bit lonely out here as many San Francisco institutions are forced to close and/ or move out of their spaces as tech companies expand and landlords are cashing in on higher and higher rents.

The George Krevsky Gallery, the Rena Bransten Gallery and Patricia Sweetow Gallery, all occupants of 77 Geary St., will be leaving soon to make way for their high-tech neighbor, MuleSoft, an Internet services company that needed to expand. ~continue reading

The Rena Bransten Gallery is packing up their 77 Geary space to make way for tech company MuleSoft

Maybe you've noticed that some politicians in the state of California awarded one of their own with the honor of having the new span of the Bay Bridge named after themselves.

Well, shouldn't the people who paid for it have the right to name it? How about being named for someone other than a self-serving politician? A few names can come to mind like Harvey Milk, Vince Guaraldi, Ansel Adams, Richard Serra, Bruce Lee, Tupac Shakur and so many others... but the one who the bridge should be named for is Emperor Norton, the character who embodies San Francisco's soul (or past soul) and who envisioned the bridge being built back in the 1880s.

We proudly call the new span of the Bay Bridge the "Emperor Norton" Bay Bridge

Late Monday night, a group of unidentified artists installed a large sign at the Bay Bridge onramp at Fifth Street, commemorating Joshua A. Norton, not Willie L. Brown. Norton was a famed 19th Century San Francisco eccentric, known for his many, many proclamations, notably the one where he declared himself Emperor of the United States, and later tacked on "Protector of Mexico" to his title. In addition, Norton is best-known for his many decrees about bridges and tunnels that he had hoped to build, connecting San Francisco and Oakland. ~continue reading

SAN FRANCISCO --- There are so many great things about this city, and the Wild SF Parrots are for sure one of them. What started out as a small population residing in Telegraph Hill has spread around the city and even beyond its borders. Our home near Cole Valley gets its fair share feasting on the Gum Trees and the occasional bird feeder like our neighbors. Ya, a bit noisy and could develop into a possible nuisance, but as of now, incredibly awesome.

Best places to view them is Sue Bierman park down by the Ferry Building --- and, no, don't feed them like we did.

We did a little winter sailing yesterday on the SF Bay, can't stop thinking about it. Lovely 10 knots of wind with a nice genoa up and we were hitting 6 knots of boat speed. Lunch at Angel Island, and it's days like yesterday, miles from the city and enjoying all the quiet and island to ourselves, that reminds us how important having a boat is.

Buy this Santana and join us... or not, we'd rather have it all to ourselves anyway.

In the early '90s my friends and I used to tape flashlights to the handlebars of our bikes and go riding around in underground storm drain tunnels. There was a whole network of these tunnels under the city that sat empty for most of the year. We would go for miles snaking up and down the sides of the tubes, clapping and yelling to see how far our echoes would carry, eventually popping out in some other part of the city covered in cobwebs and bat guano. When the tubes got too small, we laid down on skateboards and kept going. If we found a flooded part, we taped garbage bags around our legs and crossed our fingers. -READ ON

SAN FRANCISCO --- The city along with some non profit organizations are still trying to get arts organizations into the Tenderloin and Mid Market areas.

... a novel collaboration between the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the Northern California Community Loan Fund, Mayor Ed Lee's office and others has created a nonprofit that is buying buildings to allow arts groups to remain in or move into Mid-Market. The nonprofit will provide the space to arts groups in rent-to-own arrangements, with the goal of having organizations like the Luggage Store buy their buildings in seven to 10 years.

Smith, co-founder of the Luggage Store gallery, has been a staple on the arts scene since before he and partner Laurie Lazar moved into their space on the top floor of 1007 Market St. in June 1991. Back then rent was a little over $600 a month for about 1,000 square feet on a tough stretch near the corner of Sixth Street.

The start is modest. The first two buildings - 1007 Market, along with 80 Turk St., the vacant former Dollhouse adult theater - were quietly bought over the past three months by the nonprofit Community Arts Stabilization Trust with money from the Rainin Foundation.

Lee and Supervisor Jane Kim, who represents the rapidly changing area, will announce the building purchases Wednesday as part of an effort to preserve an arts core in Mid-Market. -READ ON

Every have one of those mornings where you start following links and the next thing you know you're watching a news reel clip of the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939 that was held on the brand new man-made Treasure Island?

The fair was intended to celebrate the opening of two bridges, the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge.

SAN FRANCISCO --- Ok, we all know that it's becoming nearly impossible for an artist to survive in a city as expensive as San Francisco is these days where the average price for a 1 bedroom costs $2800/ month. Art school graduates earn their degrees then hit the road for Oakland, Los Angeles or even New York as SF has surpassed the Big Apple in living costs... Artists we've known for years seem to be spilling down the coast to Los Angeles.

The purpose of this post isn't to complain about rent costs (plenty of blogs and new stories for that), but instead we wanna get out and visit with those who are hanging in there and surviving and thriving in San Francisco as an artist. Are you a full time artist trying to keep your SF zip code? Drop us a line with some samples of your work, and maybe we'll swing out to your studio for a little visit - john(at)fecalface.com

I'm not sure how many people are lucky enough to have The San Francisco Giants 3 World Series trophies put on display at their work for the company's employees to enjoy during their lunch break, but that's what happened the other day at Deluxe. So great.

When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.

Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading

"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on

NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?

The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.

Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON

SAN FRANCISCO --- The Headlands Center for the Arts is preparing for their largest fundraiser of the year set to go down on June 4th at SOMArts here in the city. Art auction, food, drinks, live music, etc and all for helping to support a great institution up in the Marin Headlands. ~details

ABOUT HEADLANDSHeadlands Center for the Arts provides an unparalleled environment for the creative process and the development of new work and ideas. Through a range of programs for artists and the public, we offer opportunities for reflection, dialogue, and exchange that build understanding and appreciation for the role of art in society.

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

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